At any rate, it's good to realize that many employees at huge companies such as Microsoft often times, or more often than not really don't have any preference for that company's software or policies. They can and even do regularly go home and use other companies' software or even do so at work.

A lot of them only show up to work to collect a paycheck and nothing more.

I don't think that's ever brought up or stressed enough on this forum or within MSDN or Microsoft.

Some, if not most people who work for Microsoft or similar large software companies just want to live at the expense of the company, period. And they want to live well at their expense.

This isn't a great thing to say or to hear if you are in HR or a PM, but it's reality. Even PMs feel this way, but they'll obviously never say so. And if you ever get an interview at a big company like that, know how to traverse a binary tree, and also know how to express every major sort in big O notation in best and worst cases.

A central problem in operator theory is the derivation of independent subrings. Recently, there has been much interest in the description of sets. Here, splitting is clearly a concern. A central problem in analytic combinatorics is the characterization of invariant, Sylvester subalegebras. This leaves open the question of invertibility.

If his reason for posting here was because he was denied a job at Microsoft I applaud their selection process; His reasoning shows a clear lack of respect and empathy for coworkers and an attitude of knowing it all. Take a look in the mirror, you might learn something.

@WTFH: I agree that if you're making a product, you should be making one that you enjoy. But if I worked in the Office department and then preferred an Android phone, that would be okay in my mind, even though Google has a (very weak) Office competitor.

Yes, there are floaters in every business. Do just enough work to avoid attention.

I would hate being asked those questions at an interview. I haven't looked at that part of computer science since college.

I would hate being asked those questions at an interview. I haven't looked at that part of computer science since college.

I once had an interview (*not at MS*) where I was asked to implement a hash table in C#. I asked why the built in wasn't good enough. The reply was "It's not optimal". I asked for proof. I didn't get that job. I didn't want it either after the silliness of a hash table implementation.

I actually had a "LOB IT" job - not some hardcore systems rockstar job - where I had to write my own hashtable implementation - in a screwy proprietary scripting language which was the only way to automate/extend a certain popular vertical application, and which inexplicably had no built-in hashtable or associative array of any kind.

@blowdart: I once had an interview with a company whose new project was to build a shopping cart application. I politely asked why any of the approximately 1.7 billion existing shopping cart components weren't good enough. The answer was pretty much the same as you got. They also wanted to build a résumé site that allowed people to post videos. Apparently, when they asked if I had any questions, I wasn't supposed to actually ask any, regardless of how tactful I tried to be.

Keep in mind that this was a company that didn't have any developers on staff or any experience with building software. Their products were primarily breast pumps and dog training collars and they wanted to build and sell a shopping cart component.

Keep in mind that this was a company that didn't have any developers on staff or any experience with building software. Their products were primarily breast pumps and dog training collars and they wanted to build and sell a shopping cart component.

Soooooo...was it a Dom-Sub fetish site or just a really eclectic store?

@ScanIAm: It was a smallish manufacturing outfit. They didn't sell all of their products in the same store, but had separate retail channels for each side of the business. I can't even remember the name, but I got the sense from talking to them that the owner was all over the place with a healthy dose of Not-Invented-Here.

No fetish stuff, but I definitely got a weird vibe from the employees.